


An Unknown Chance

by crowleyshouseplant



Category: The Mummy Returns (2001)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26466247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: Evy and Rick choose to save their enemy
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28





	An Unknown Chance

You cling to the rock face because you do not wish for death. The deaths you have known are not true deaths--they are eternal torments. 

You do not wish for Anck-su-namun to die, but you do not wish to be parted. The suffering is worth it to be with her, because you do not truly live lest she is by your side. Even Death holds no fear for you should she join you in it.

The man you know as O'Connell--a curse on him!--grunts beside you, but you do not have eyes for him.

The one who brought you back once upon a time stands beside the one you love. Fear inscribes itself on both their faces. You know only one fear, and you know Anck-su-namun shares that fear. Why does she not throw herself into the grips of that fear as you have thrown yourself into death?

O'Connell screams as you screamed when Pharaoh's guards stole her life and the life you were supposed to share in golden splendor with each other. 

You do not know why he screams when the one who once saved you dashes forward, heedless of the rock and her fragile mortal body, already brought back once. She bows and kneels and struggles to heave your enemy from certain death towards life.

You wait for Anck-su-namun, sure that the love of centuries ties you closer than the promise of death. Your love lives beyond death. It lives even beyond lifetimes for she has come back, if not in the way you had planned, and you have returned twice. 

You plead with her as she steps back, and then she has gone, leaving you behind.

She has left you to die alone, as she has died twice alone. Your heart breaks as stone shatters beneath your fingers.

You let go because she has left you. You let go because she does not embrace Death, your hateful friend, with you. You let go so you may fall to your long eternity, and your eyes close.

Hands grip you by the wrists. Their fingers dig into your flesh, widening the spaces between your bones, and it is a kind of agony that reminds you that once you were just a man, a priest.

You gaze upon the faces of those who have long opposed you because they do not understand love as you do. They have not suffered for it as you have. They have not known the agony of a sarcophagus in the dark and the whisper of the beetles as they consume, leaving your beating heart for last as it beats the syllables of her name until it's gone and the scarabs starve to death in turn, for though they ate you, your curse remains yours and yours alone.

They do not know. They do not understand.

You thrash in their hands. You scream at them, knowing she at least will understand for she has spoken your tongue when she brought you back. Her jaw hardens. She says something in the language you do not know, and they wrestle you up.

Stone grits across your stomach, scraping your flesh. They pull you from your knees and force you to run in front of them. They wish you to be their shield--you welcome the rocks to strike you until O'Connell jerks you sideways and a rock hurtles where your head once was. You do not understand.

You do not wish for your heart to beat its adrenaline in you. You wish to lay down and die a true death. They force you in their silly balloon. Others are angry at your presence. You would be angry too if the hole where your heart was had room for it.

You collapse on the desert warm wood. You weep in front of those who have tried to kill you and those you have tried to kill in turn. You do not care if they see--nothing matters without Anck-su-namun: not your life, not your dignity.

The one you remember as Evy kneels beside you after yelling at the two men who had taken Anck-su-namun from you before. Her hair curls around her face. You recognize her now. You don't know how you failed before. Perhaps because your eyes had not been your own.

She speaks to you. You hear but you do not understand.

"We're taking you with us. But you're not a prisoner."

O'Connell interjects, but she ignores him.

"You'll stay with us."

You do not have words. You are nothing. You curl your knees to your stomach, and close your eyes, and hope you cannot open them.

You do. The sun forces them open, and you become momentarily blinded, a parting jab from Ra.

They put you in their strange machines. They bring you to a strange country: ugly and cold and drab. You hate it.

They bring you to a house, smaller than the lavish homes of your life before death. Evy shows you to a small room she says is yours. She leaves you standing in the center of it. 

It is not yours. It does not remind you of a home you have not seen in hundreds of years.

Nevertheless you close the door behind her. You keep it latched shut. They put plates of unfamiliar food before it that sometimes you eat and sometimes you don't.

But even misery cannot keep boredom at bay forever. At night, when they sleep, you slip from your room wearing unfamiliar clothes like they wear. You do not feel like the you before your first death. You miss him. You miss her.

You build a fire in the ashes of the one before it. You hold your hands to its flames and for the first time in a long time you whisper old prayers to the old gods who forsake you.

You whisper their names like balm against the wounds scored in your flesh.

You do not remember falling asleep until something tinkles in your ear and you're wide awake, expecting O'Connell to have a spear to your heart though that does not make sense as they could have killed you ages ago.

It is a silver spoon rattling against a cup full of tea. The fire has burned itself out. O'Connell leans beside the hearth, arms folded across his chest, each wrist resting on his weapons.

He had learned only later they were called guns.

Evy sits in the chair next to yours with her own tea and a laughably big book the size priests were fond of in your life.

Their child was not to be seen.

"Go on," she says pointing to his tea. "It's dried herbs from Egypt."

His home, empty without her.

"Why?"

She looks up, glasses slipping. O'Connell tenses. "Eternity is a long time, don't you think?"

It was.

"I died, and I grew tired of the killing." She takes a sip of her tea. "I truly thought Anck-su-namun would follow me. I think you did too. We are selfish, aren't we, refusing to live without the person we love." She looks at O'Connell the way Anck-su-namun filled your gaze before she died and you suffered eternal torment.

It's as if O'Connell has buried his sword in you again. 

You do not respond, shocked that maybe she does know, maybe does understand. You almost hate her for that. You definitely hate the spoon for betraying your trembling hands.

The days pass. You eat with them sometimes. Slowly you begin to understand their strange language despite your attempts not to.

But now you can read Evy's books. You mark them up in red where those stupid Bembridge scholars got it wrong. You seethe at their falsehoods. You drop the corrected manuscripts at Evy's feet when she returns home. She picks them up and reads your scratchings as she tries to hang up her coat and hat, not noticing they fall to the floor as she's missed their hooks.

O'Connell trails after, putting her things away. He calls her dear. 

The next morning she knocks on your door arms full of books and manuscripts. She wants to talk to you about your home. You miss it though you do not wish to return (at least not yet) so you indulge her. 

The descendant of Pharaoh's body guard comes to visit. You glare at each other until Evy says, "Oh for goodness sake, gentlemen."

You do not try to kill him. He does not try to kill you. You think it is for Evy's sake.

More time passes. Evy invites you to go to Egypt with her. She holds the locket at her throat. She has already passed on the knowledge her Egyptian mother shared with her.

You realize she is like you. She must go to Egypt because she yearns for its golden sand, and the Nile runs through her. Rick follows because where she goes he goes.

The pain Anck-su-namun's leaving has healed to a dull ache.

You step into Cairo with Rick and Evy behind you. You look past its modern buildings, still strange to your eyes, and beyond the smell of the engines. You breathe the air of Egypt. You lift your arm to its sun, and your sacrifice and suffering feels almost ended. Even though you had reached out your hand against your home, it welcomes you back. It has missed you too.

You look back to Evy and Rick. Rick's eyes are on her, but she too looks at the sky, her eyes brighter and more alive than in awful England.

You look back. You reach for Amun-Ra, whom you once feared so but now no longer. You are home.


End file.
